1974

Events

Doctor Who Universe

• Reginald Tyler dies, still working obsessively on revisions to his The True History of Planets. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
• The Doctor and Lucie Miller arrive in England at a service station on the M62 sometime in the winter. (BFA: Horror of Glam Rock)
• Evelyn Smythe would later recall that the class of 1974 were a particularly difficult bunch. (BFA: The Marian Conspiracy)

Real World

Unknown date

• Jon Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen record a special 10-minute mini-adventure featuring the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and the Daleks for the BBC Radio programme Glorious Goodwood. This appears to be the earliest known original Doctor Who audio story.

January

• 05 - DW: The Time Warrior Episode 4 is first broadcast.
• 12 - DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 1 is first broadcast. The episode carries the title Invasion! to preserve the cliffhanger of episode 1.
• 14 - Paul Whitsun-Jones, who played the Squire in DW: The Smugglers and the Marshal in DW: The Mutants, dies from appendicitis.
• 17 - Target Books follows up its successful 1973 re-printings of novelisations from the 1960s with the publications of its first newly commissioned adaptations, DWN: Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion by Terrance Dicks, based upon the Third Doctor serial DW: Spearhead from Space, and DWN: Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters by Malcolm Hulke, adapting DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians. Auton Invasion would be the first of many Doctor Who novels written by Dicks over the next 30-plus years and Target would continue to novelise Doctor Who adventures for the next 20 years. The practice of giving novelisations titles differing from the broadcast versions would continue off-and-on into the 1980s, though it would occur less frequently from the late 1970s.
  • Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion also marks the start of a long and prolific association between Dicks and the world of Doctor Who printed fiction; over the next 35 years he would go on to write not only the lion's share of Target novelisations, but also contribute to most of the later lines of spin-off continuation fiction.
• 19 - DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 2 is first broadcast.
• 26 - DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 3 is first broadcast.

February

• 02 - DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 4 is first broadcast.
• 09 - DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 5 is first broadcast.
• 16 - DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 6 is first broadcast. Richard Franklin leaves the series as a regular, though he returns later in the season.
• 23 - DW: Death to the Daleks Episode 1 is first broadcast. This episode was later deleted by the BBC. Although another copy was eventually discovered, this was the most recent episode to have been successfully "junked" by the BBC archives.

March

• 02 - DW: Death to the Daleks Episode 2 is first broadcast.
• 09 - DW: Death to the Daleks Episode 3 is first broadcast.
• 16 - DW: Death to the Daleks Episode 4 is first broadcast.
• 23 - DW: The Monster of Peladon Episode 1 is first broadcast.
• 30 - DW: The Monster of Peladon Episode 2 is first broadcast.

April

• DWN: Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon is first published.
• DWN: Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks is first published.
• 06 - DW: The Monster of Peladon Episode 3 is first broadcast.
• 13 - DW: The Monster of Peladon Episode 4 is first broadcast.
• 20 - DW: The Monster of Peladon Episode 5 is first broadcast.
• 27 - DW: The Monster of Peladon Episode 6 is first broadcast.

May

• 04 - DW: Planet of the Spiders Episode 1 is first broadcast.
• 11 - DW: Planet of the Spiders Episode 2 is first broadcast.
• 18 - DW: Planet of the Spiders Episode 3 is first broadcast.
• 25 - DW: Planet of the Spiders Episode 4 is first broadcast.

June

• 01 - DW: Planet of the Spiders Episode 5 is first broadcast.
• 08 - DW: Planet of the Spiders Episode 6 is first broadcast, concluding season 11 and ending in Jon Pertwee's regeneration into Tom Baker. Richard Franklin also leaves the series permanently with this episode.

September

• Doctor Who Annual 1975 published.
• 9 - Jim Tyson, who played one of the tourists on the Empire State Building in DW: The Chase, dies from a heart attack.
• 22 - Stephanie Bidmead, who played Maaga in DW: Galaxy 4 dies.
• 30 - Tom Baker and Philip Hinchcliffe are interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Good Morning Sou'West.

October

• 17 - DWN: Doctor Who and the Dæmons and DWN: Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils First Published.

November

• 21 - DWN: Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen First Published. This is the first published novelisation of a Second Doctor serial.

December

• 16 - The stage play SP: Doctor Who and the Daleks in The Seven Keys to Doomsday debuts at The Adelphi Theatre. This is the first professional stage play to feature the Doctor, and the first Doctor Who-related stage play since SP: The Curse of the Daleks in 1965-66.
• 28 - DW: Robot Episode 1 is first broadcast, launching Season 12. Besides properly introducing Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, the episode also sees Ian Marter debuting as new companion Harry Sullivan.

1973

20th century 1970s

1975